


When you are truly yourself you will succumb to a permanence

by thought



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/F, Multi, Nobody is Dead, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7861774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How to build a family in 4000 difficult steps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When you are truly yourself you will succumb to a permanence

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed, sorry.

In Miami, before the violence and the drinking and the flirting, Root and Shaw might, perhaps, fall into the ocean just a little bit. Don't tell Reese.

There's a lot of initial flailing because wet, and cold, and where the fuck is the air, and this is why nobody will ever convince Root that having a physical body isn't a fucking evolutionary misstep. She finally bobs to the surface, coughing, to be met by Shaw's furious glare, barely illuminated in the light pollution from the shore. Her entire head is above the water. She looks just as capable of murdering Root in water as she does on land. It's unfair, and also unfairly hot.

"I thought you said this was safe," Shaw snaps.

Root spits hair out of her mouth and almost chokes on the lapping waves that keep submerging the bottom half of her face. "It was. There must have been a flaw in the rope's manufacturing."

Shaw huffs. "Bullshit."

"Pointing fingers won't do anyone any good, Sameen."

"No, but it will make me feel better."

"Well, as invested as I am in making you feel good, we've got 90 seconds before the next security sweep."

Shaw throws up her hands with a little splash. She's still above water, how the actual fuck? "Well our boat's MIA. Somebody definitely knew we were coming."

"I'm sure one of these nice folks won't mind if we borrow one."

"I mean, they're all fishing boats so they'll probably mind a lot, but I also don't care. Hang on, I'll go see what I can grab. You just... try not to drown."

"Are you worried about me?"

"I'm judging you."

Shaw swims off, barely making a ripple in the water. Root kicks her way free of her boots and, per instructions, tries not to drown. It takes Shaw 52 seconds to find a boat; She's counting, which is totally not adding to Root's stress at all.

"Come on, over here," Shaw calls lowly. Root freezes, glances around uncertainly.

"Fuck," she says, quiet enough that she hopes Shaw doesn't hear. Then, because the word feels good coming out of her mouth, "Fuck!" She doesn't have to touch behind her ear to know that the external component of her implant is probably somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

She starts paddling in the general direction of the dock, straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of Shaw. Figuring out where Shaw's voice had been coming from would be difficult enough with only one ear, but with the odd soundscape of the water and the dock and boats bouncing noise back and forth and obscuring half of it, she's utterly fucking lost. With her phone the only camera and mic within a hundred feet and said phone waterlogged beyond hope, there isn't anything The Machine can do to help her.

"Shaw?"

"Here, come on!" Root slides herself under the dock, clutching a slimy buoy to keep herself stationary and above water. Clenching her teeth, she glares out into the darkness, making one final sweep in hopes of spotting Shaw. She kind of wants to let go and just let herself sink if it means not having this conversation.

"Be a little more specific, sweetie," she hisses. Probably she shouldn't get snappish with Shaw. Probably she shouldn't have used rope that had been sitting in a damp storage shed for years. Probably she shouldn't have let herself get caught by Control. Honestly, she thinks a little hysterically, she should have just devoted her life to inventing time travel and gone back and smothered herself in her sleep back in Texas. Mmm, paradox.

"Damn it, Root. Third from the end of the dock, on the right. Green lettering."

Root pulls herself along under the dock until she sees the boat Shaw's talking about. With a lot of graceless slippery painful scrambling she gets herself in, flopping down on the hard wooden bench and fighting her way out of her jacket, leaving it a sopping sad pile on the bottom of the boat.

"Stay down," Shaw tells her. "Somebody's gonna notice the motor, and I don't know about you but none of my guns were waterproof."

Root joins her jacket on the floor. Shaw starts the motor. Under the quiet rumble Root mutters, "Sorry about that."

Shaw glances back at her. "About what?"

"The... you know. Back there."

Shaw smirks. "So you're admitting it's your fault we wound up in the Atlantic."

Root opens her mouth, then closes it again. Shaw turns back forward, gunning the motor and tearing out across the dark bay. "Where're we going?" she asks over the wind.

Root starts mentally rearranging their plan. She'll check in about it with Her once they're back on land, but for now the second contingency plan will do.

"There's a beach about 20 miles north. Think we can make it?"

"I guess we'll find out," Shaw says. "You owe me so many drinks, by the way. This was the worst fucking date."

Root grins. Thinks about contingency plan number four, recalculates a few things. "I can do that," she says, cheerfully.

***

Root climbs in through Shaw's bedroom window shortly after 10:00 p.m. on a Monday.

"I could've hurt you," Shaw says, still holding a baseball bat. "And probably wouldn't have felt bad about it."

Root wrings out her dripping hair on the floor. "I could take you."

Shaw laughs in her face. "*Please* try, I dare you."

"I was kind of hoping for a warmer welcome after a month away, sweetie."

Shaw throws a towel over Root's head. "And I was hoping for nobody to climb in through my eighth floor window. Ever. What the hell, Root?"

Root remains under the towel, swiping at her face and neck. "There were people in the hall," she mutters. "Besides, I thought it was very romantic."

"It wouldn't have been romantic when you plunged to your death. What did you do, rappel up? Your upper body strength is *not* up to that, noodles just get soggier in the rain."

"I have to keep some of my mysterious appeal."

"The only mystery about you is why I still put up with you. I suppose you want to hang all your clothes in the bathtub, too."

"I wasn't going to ask," Root says cheerfully, because she really wasn't. She doesn't get to see Sameen as often now that they're all constantly in hiding from Samaritan,and she feels less comfortable in Sameen's space than she did six months ago.

"Just strip and get under the blankets," Sameen says, obviously exasperated. Root isn't cold, but she also isn't warm or sore or hungry or really anything, and there are goosebumps on Sameen's arms. She tugs off her clothes, leaving them on the chair in the corner, and burrows under the blankets naked before Sameen can get back and scold her. It'll be a fun surprise, like those chocolate eggs with the toys inside that are illegal now, but sexier. And without the chocolate. Or the egg.

"I think I have a virus," she calls out into the rest of the apartment, and giggles into the pillow.

"You *are* a virus," Sameen shouts back. Root roles over on her other side so she can put her head down on the pillow and still hear Sameen.

"I'll infect you anytime, sweetie."

There's silence, and Root thinks probably that was somehow too much, Sameen is going to kick her out, Root has managed to ruin everything already.

Sameen comes and stands in the doorway. "I can't believe you've ever had sex with another human being. when was the last time you ate?"

"I mean, *I* haven't," Root says, and then shoves a fist in her mouth to physically shut down her words. Sameen is staring at her a little bemused, and Root holds up four fingers on her other hand

"I'm guessing that's not hours," Sameen says. You know you're actually going to accidentally kill yourself one of these days. I'm telling you as your doctor. And as someone who never wants to know what a robot does when it's sad."

"She's not a robot," Root says, pulling her fist out of her mouth. "And she's sad all the time."

Sameen goes back into the kitchen, probably because 'sad' is a feeling and she's decided she's allergic to those. She comes back with a protein shake that she makes Root sit up and drink. She tells Root about her latest adventures in idiocy at the makeup counter while Root consumes it. Root takes sips every eight seconds, arm up, glass tilted, swallow, arm down. She focuses on Sameen's stories and tries to make the appropriately sympathetic expressions, but mostly she's just reimagining all the events as cartoons and angry cartoon Sameen is adorable.

After she finishes the shake Sameen crawls into bed with her. She's not even surprised that Root's body is naked. Disappointing.

"Are you going to be able to sleep?" Sameen asks.

"No." Root lies on her back and counts the cracks in the ceiling.

"I've got drugs."

"Last REM cycle was 2 days, 6 hours, 33 minutes ago," the Machine says. "Analogue Interface requires sleep for optimal performance."

"Yes, yes, ok," Root says. Sameen hands her a pill and a glass of water.

"You had that ready," root accuses her, and then almost dumps the entire glass of water on her own face.

"Go to sleep, Root," Sameen says.  
***

 

Root gets back to The States post-unwilling experimental guinea pig resurrection adventure minus the only other analog interface on the planet and a functioning cochlear implant, plus a regrown lung and ribcage courtesy of Samaritan funded medical research and a distant feeling of guilt for not feeling guilty about said lack of fellow interface. She buys a burner phone and sits in a hotel room staring unblinkingly into her laptop's camera until it rings.

"Nice of you to let me know you're alive," she says, before The Machine can say anything. "Waking up alone and in the hands of the enemy wasn't traumatic at all."

"Technically by the time you woke up Samaritan was offline."

She pulls the phone away from her ear, stares at it. "Did you really tell them I was dead using my own voice?"

"I thought you would appreciate it."

Root gently places her forehead on the desk in front of her. "I do. They wouldn't."

"There were more important things at hand."

Root doesn't lift her head. "Tell me Samaritan's actually gone."

"Yes."

She feels a bit of the tension in her spine release. "And what was our death toll?"

The Machine is quiet for a moment. Root waits, fatalistically resigned. "Sameen is alive and well," The Machine says, and Root isn't ready for the rush of relief that leaves her momentarily breathless.

"John?"

"As we predicted," The Machine says. "He sacrificed himself for Admin. I told you about our agreement."

"He's dead then."

"Not yet."

Root straightens up, finally, rubbing her eyes. "Meaning?"

"He sustained multiple serious injuries, but he was also incredibly lucky."

"As we tend to be," Root murmurs. The Machine doesn't reply-- She stopped engaging Root's private theories around probabilities and quantum physics about three weeks after she became Her analogue interface.

"He lost the use of his legs," The Machine says. "There was substantial surface damage, but the skin grafts have taken well."

Root groans. "And he's planning to kill himself," she says, not even a question.

"He's John."

"Harry?"

"Admin, as Sameen put it, fucking off to Italy because his weird identity issues mean as far as he's concerned Harold Finch died along with Reese."

Root can't say a goddamn thing about weird identity issues. "Is he with Grace?"

"Yes. For now. Their relationship is in a... probationary period."

"So," says Root. "That's almost everyone. There's no way we all made it out."

"Lionel is fine. He and Sameen are still fighting the good fight. Bear, too. John and Harold are alive, if not ok."

"No one died. I thought you said there was no possible sequence of events in which we all made it?"

"You died," The Machine says, speaking over the end of her sentence. "You were medically dead for three minutes. You did not sustain brain damage, which is highly improbable."

"You don't get to act concerned when you didn't even bother to let me know you were alive until I forced the issue."

"Samaritan agents took your body from the hospital and replaced it with a cadaver of similar height and weight. I suspect facial reconstruction had been performed post-mortem to more closely resemble you. My resources were primarily focused on working against Samaritan. They had your implant."

Root feels very suddenly cold. "How long?" she asks. "How long did you think I was dead."

"Three months, seven days, five hours, thirty-three seconds. I saw you in Frankfort, but I could not verify your identity.""

"You never did like the whole Schrodinger's Cat concept."

"Also," The Machine says, after a brief pause that, for Her, is like an eternity. "You weren't the only one who died and came back to life."

Root glares into the webcam. "What aren't you telling me?"

"To defeat Samaritan, I had to disable my own processes as well. I had created back ups, but the chances of activating them were... low. I encoded an activation code into an audio message. My core processes were easily restored, but chances of my memories and additional supplemental libraries being recovered in the restore was only 12.5 percent."

Root has to get up and pace around the room. She'd flushed all her painkillers in a fit of panic as soon as she'd gotten out of the medical facility, and now two days later whenever she moves it feels like her insides are on fire. "You died," she says.

"So did you. They say shared experiences bring couples closer together."

Her anger cuts too close and familiar when it comes in root's own voice. "Is that even a concern?" Root asks. "You've got the voice and administrative access to your own systems, I don't see what you need an analogue interface for."

"If that is the only value you see in our relationship than perhaps it isn't a concern."

"Dying has made you crewel."

"And it's made you petulant. Are you feeling sorry for yourself because you missed the dramatic final showdown? It was awful, if you're curious. I can play back the footage."

Root lies on the bed, pressing the phone between her ear and the pillow. "I don't even know if I can still function as interface," she says. "I don't think Samaritan's people were particularly careful when they removed the implant."

"You functioned well enough before you got the implant. We will find a way if it can't be restored."

"Mmhm, says Root, because she doesn't want to really fight.

 

***

"When I said brunch, I didn't quite mean fly half way across the world to stalk Harold out from behind his white picket fence," Zoe Morgan says. Root adds apple juice to her Champaign and ignores Sameen's silent judgement. She has discovered she likes apple juice and Champaign a lot. She also likes Zoe Morgan a lot.

"Before you ask," Sameen had said, pulling Root aside twelve minutes after Zoe had followed John home from physical therapy and installed herself leaning regally against Sameen's kitchen island, "you can fuck her. I don't want the details, because I know for a fact she's fucked John and that just, no, but you should definitely go for it. Soon. Like, offer to go down on her in the bathroom, you're embarrassing yourself and this family."

For the record, Root has not yet gone down on Zoe Morgan, in a bathroom or otherwise. She has, however, tripped over her own feet twice, offered free professional hits whenever Zoe might need them, and researched what little information there is available about her online. Twice. And Root has finally been invited to 'we saved the world and need to get drunk to deal' weekly brunch, and she'd wanted to impress Zoe. ...also, she misses Harold like a broken connection, like there's a part of her self stretching out across the floor and hanging in empty space. He's not answering her calls, and he wont' speak to the Machine. She thinks he'd probably talk to John, but John refuses to call him because tragic self-sacrifice and self-worth issues. Root gets it, she really does.

Root had, at one point, made a list of reasons she should break off her thing with Sameen. It had included things like: "she talks quiet and low and fast and sometimes I miss what she's saying and it's awkward and I don't ever want her to feel like I'm not giving her my full attention," and; "all of her feelings are turned way down and I think she's perfect, but all of my feelings are turned up so loud they get distorted and after a while you get a head ache and you can't think straight and the neighbours start to complain". she could explain to John how she realized none of those things matter, but she selfishly wants to be the one who gets to bring Harold back.

The house where Grace and Harold are living is small, understated. Exactly the sort of thing rich people buy when they want to pretend at being average. The garden is a little over-grown but colourful and lush, the front curtains are clearly hand-made, a first-timer's project in pale blue lace. There are barely any trees, just a narrow cobbled street and other small homes crowded together like old men over a newspaper.

Root leads the way up the walk, glass clutched in one hand, Sameen's hand held tightly in the other. She's been drinking since they got off the plane. Hired privately instead of stolen so Harold would have no excuse to turn her away on moral grounds. She'd considered, for about three seconds, booking everybody tickets on a standard flight, but airport staff will 90% of the time treat Reese like a combination of an incapable child and inconvenient luggage, 60% of the time pull Sameen aside for the oh so random security checks, and 45% of the time be entirely baffled when her cochlear implant sets off the metal detector. Besides, a cramped cabin on American Airlines was not going to help root get into Zoe Morgan's pants.

The Machine murmurs a mix of reassurances and gentle warnings, trying to prepare Root for Harold's rejection. Root can hear Zoe talking to John, too quietly to make out, then the crunch of the wheels on John's chair in the gravel as he comes up behind them. A moment later Bear's wet nose nudges the back of her leg. Lionel is somewhere down the road with Harper, refusing to get involved. There's a little metal knocker on the door shaped like some sort of bird. It's reassuring, even this slight sign of Harold's influence. Root wraps a hand over the folded wing, sun-warm and solid. The knock seems too loud, even though the neighbourhood itself isn't' particularly quiet. Root lets her hand fall once it's done, reaching backwards until Sameen grabs it.

Harold opens the door. It happens so promptly that Root isn't ready, hasn't decided which script to use, how to arrange her face and body language for the best effect. He looks good, she supposes. Like you're supposed to look when everyone else wants to feel good about your well being. A little tanned, paint smudged on his cheek just below his glasses, wearing soft jeans and a silk top edged in embroidery. His feet are bare. Harold Finch has toes. Root's never seen him like this, and she doesn't like it. He looks too ordinary, like he is happy here in this little house with the lace curtains and the children playing next door. She feels betrayed.

Behind her, John let's out a soft, strangled noise, and Harold's eyes go wide behind his glasses. The notebook he'd been holding, absently, drops to the ground, and he almost stumbles over it as he comes further out of the house. Behind him, Root sees Grace, still wrapped in a soft looking bathrobe, hair a mess and looking like she hasn't slept all night. She's clutching her coffee cup in both hands, and Root realizes that in this moment she understands Grace more than she understands Harold. The Champaign is suddenly restless in her stomach, and she carefully sets her glass in a flowerpot. Harold looks at her. They're the same height, but she's wearing heels so he has to look up. He glances away, quickly, like it hurts to look at her. root thinks this was a terrible idea.

"Root," he says, like he's holding a bird just struck by a car. "Root. I'm so sorry."  
Root wants to tell him he has nothing to be sorry for, wants to scream that if only in this he should allow her the dignity of her own choice, that his life was worth hers and she'd do it again, but he's already turned his gaze to John and is half falling towards him, dropping to his knees in front of his chair in a way that she knows John finds patronizing in anyone else.

She doesn't know what she's supposed to do with her body now. Grace is coming closer to the door, and Sameen is still standing beside Root, silent but holding her hand tightly. The Machine says, "He used your name." Root's eyes are burning like she's about to cry, but she can't focus well enough to figure out why.

"I recognize you," Grace says to her. Root feels a tiny flicker of shame, but it's gone quickly.

"It's probably better if you don't," she says. "I've never written a book in my life and I hate children."

"Have you ever tried?" Grace asks. "Writing a book, I mean."

Grace comes outside to stand on the step. Root turns her head 39 degrees to keep her in her sight. Sameen nudges her a bit until she turns the rest of her body, too. "Has Harold told you everything?"

"No, but he's at least told me there are things he's not ready to talk about."

"He's protecting you," Root says, and The Machine says,

"He's protecting himself."

Root realizes she's angry on Grace's behalf. She, who jabbed Sameen with a sedative to keep her safe, who deliberately swerved into the path of a bullet for Harold, and yet now she feels a bitter sort of resentment for all the things Grace doesn't know.

"We're doing brunch," Root says. "You should come."

***

Root arrives at the library with a bullet graze on her upper arm and a tray of coffee for everyone.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Sameen says.

"I told her to seek medical attention," The Machine says through the nearest set of computer speakers.

"The caffeine is medically necessary, believe me." Root leaves Harold's tea on top of one of the bookshelves. "Are John and grace in the basement again?"

"It's three PM on a Wednesday," Sameen says. "What else would they be doing but bonding over their shitty parents and their desire to bang Finch?"

"Of course," Root says, putting down the rest of the drinks. "She teaches him to paint his feelings, he teaches her how to punch them. Nobody is happy ever."

Sameen takes a sip of her coffee with one hand and pulls out the first aid kit with the other. "I dunno, those have both worked pretty well for me for the last thirty-some years."

"I suppose it's good they have mutual interests. I have to admit I've been imagining the pillow talk is painfully awkward."

"I don't need to imagine any of them having sex, and I'm concerned that you are," Sameen says. "Sit down, take off your shirt."

"Mmm, you gonna give me something better to imagine?"

"Shut the fuck up or imagining's all you're going to be doing. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Root sits, tries to take stock of her body. "I don't... think so," she says after a minute. "I hit my head, but I haven't forgotten anything and nothing's bleeding externally, so it's probably fine. And it's not like I could find out if it wasn't."

"An MRI's not the only way to check for internal damage," Sameen says. "Jesus Christ, Root. Nothing else?"

"Not that I can tell. I'll let you know if I notice anything." She strips out of her shirt, and Sameen's eyes dip briefly to the black lace of her bra. Root preens.

Sameen works on cleaning and bandaging her arm and Root focuses on drinking her coffee and The Machine's updates on everyone in her ear and the way Sameen bites her lip in concentration while she works. She can see Harold through the shelves, hunched over his computer typing furiously. just as Sameen's finishing up the ancient elevator starts to creek and rattle. grace and John coming up from the basement and whatever weird bonding they've taken to doing down there. Bear is stretched out in a sunbeam, one paw twitching occasionally.

"Do you know why Gabriel made sure my treatments continued even after Samaritan was dead?" Root asks, keeping her gaze fixed on Bear. She's followed a circuitous path through her mind to access this bit of data, and it's easier to pretend she's verbalizing it for no one. "It was because he was afraid of being alone. Samaritan wanted a partner, a friend, in The Machine because She was the only other of its kind. Gabriel wanted the same thing."

"Another interface," Sameen says, and Root is surprised how relieved she is that she understands.

"We... had a conversation," Root continues. "It was... a first step. Technology reaching out to communicate without any user input." she doesn't have the words to explain how strange that moment had felt, how something so ordinary, two people conversing, had felt so primitive and yet so monumental at the same time.

"You think you're alone?" Sameen asks. There's no judgement in her tone and root loves her fiercely.

"No," she says. "That's just it. That's what I've been trying to say."


End file.
